Action research is a type of applied research. It is action-oriented and a form of professional development. It is conducted by practitioners and is geared toward the improvement of professional practice. Action research as a tool of inquiry can be used to discover solutions to discrete problems that emerge in any classroom or school. Presented here are three cases of action research that aim to improve areas of concern in teaching and learning at the individual subject, school and across-schools level. Queenie CHENG and her team present "The Action Research on Classroom Learning and Professional Development of Teachers" which is a subject-based action research; Stephen LUI presents a whole school action research, "Working on What Works: A Case Study to Improve the Effectiveness of a Government Secondary School in Hong Kong"; and Paul LEE, Siu -Wai WU and Peter TANG of The Hong Kong Primary Education Research Association present "Sharing and Action research on School Self-evaluation in Primary School", an action research project joined by nine primary schools. This symposium provides a chance for open discussion.

Recently, the professional development and training of principals has become a hot issue in Hong Kong. The idea of enhancing the professional quality of principals is officially raised by the Education Commission in its Report no. 7, followed by a government consultation paper on a proposed principals training programme. It is mentioned in the consultation paper that the draft programme is proposed after some visits to Australia, the USA, the UK and Singapore and a study of their prinicpals development programmes. The impact of the introduction of a principals training programme is great. It affects more than 1,200 primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong and twice or thrice the number in terms of serving and potential principals, not to mention the other stakeholders namely teachers, parents and students. There are also related controversial issues ranging from educational theory to practice. The purpose of this paper is twofold. Firstly, it is to introduce in greater details the various principals training programmes of the countries mentioned in the consultation paper. On top of them, training programmes in China and some other countries are also included to give an overall picture of representative principal training programmes. It is hope that this will widen our scope in the philosophy and practice behind a principals' training programme. Secondly, the paper also reports the findings of a survey conducted after the publication of the consultation paper. The survey was conducted in terms of questionnaires and the subjects of the survey were more than 750 serving and aspiring principals in over 230 local primary and secondary schools. Results of the survey will be discussed and recommendations will be made.

This article investigates the perceptions of English headteachers and Hong Kong principals on the kinds of pressures that they believed affected the way they did their job, and in particular the degree to which they felt their governments were affecting their leadership role. The research utilised semi-structured interviews to generate written 'portraits' of these individuals, which were then examined to answer questions about current pressures. The findings suggested that (1) there was considerable variation in the manner these individuals responded to key issues; (2) all individuals prioritised local concerns, and particularly with consideration to the children in their care; (3) there was a greater sense of embattlement from the English headteachers and a more critical approach to legislation, than from the Hong Kong principals, though with considerable individual variation in the degree of overt resistance shown; (4) whilst current educational reforms in Hong Kong seemed to favour the development of creativity more than those in England, there was within both national contexts evidence of the damaging effects of the pace and quantity of reforms.
[Copyright of School Leadership and Management is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13632434.2012.740798]